Preloading Groups

[Mark Doliner]

For XMPP the master copy of the buddy list is stored on the server
(operated by Google, in the case of Google Talk).  Pidgin does keep a
local copy, but it's just a copy of the list from the server.

I'm not aware of Google offering the ability to preload contact lists,
but I'd try searching around.  If you really want to you could write a
Pidgin plugin that users run that adds people to the contact list one
by one, but I'm guessing that's more trouble than it's worth.